DBS Group Holdings Ltd suffered an outage of online services Wednesday morning, leaving customers unable to access its web and mobile banking platforms.

Access to its digital services - digibank Online and Mobile, PayLah! - is currently unavailable, Southeast Asia’s biggest lender said in a post on its Facebook page as well as in a message to users trying to log in on their devices. “Please be assured that our systems remain secure and uncompromised,” the message read.

Customers can still transact using their DBS cards, the bank said, apologising for the inconvenience caused. The issue is limited to Singapore, a DBS spokesperson said, pointing to the Facebook post as the latest update on the disruption.

While unusual for a sector known for its constant availability, Wednesday’s incident is reminiscent of an outage the bank suffered in 2021 - one of its worst digital disruptions in the past decade. The Monetary Authority of Singapore ordered DBS to set aside more capital after that earlier episode left thousands of customers unable to log on to its digital platforms for at least two days. Those issues stemmed from the bank’s access control services. MAS has asked DBS to validate the bank’s remedial actions with regards to the 2021 event by July this year, DBS said earlier this week.

Under MAS regulations, financial institutions need to ensure that the maximum unscheduled downtime for each critical system doesn’t exceed four hours within any period of 12 months.

  - Bloomberg